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WEDNESDAY, May 9, 2012 (MedPage Today) — As the world's population ages, an increasing number of people in low- to middle-income countries are now dealing with chronic disease, according to a report from the the U.S. Census Bureau and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Chronic diseases such as hypertension and arthritis were once thought to be "diseases of affluence" while infectious diseases were more problematic for countries with lower income.

But the new report, which examined the health of people 50 and older who live in China, Russia, India, Mexico, South Africa, and Ghana, confirmed an earlier finding that chronic diseases are by far the leading cause of mortality in the world, and provided some specificity on the nature of chronic disease in those countries.

Those six countries were home to 42 percent of the world's 1.4 billion people who were 50 or older in 2010, so the health of people living in those countries is "certain to have a remarkable impact on the world's overall disease burden and healthcare," the authors wrote.

"This report illustrates a disturbing transition occurring in these and other low- and middle-income countries," Richard Suzman, PhD, director of the Census Bureau's National Institute of Aging's Division of Behavioral and Social Research said in a press release.

Suzman said that arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic, noncommunicable diseases are "rapidly becoming more widespread" in the six countries.

For the Global Aging and Adult Health (SAGE) survey, residents of the six countries were asked if they had ever been diagnosed with any of the following chronic conditions:

Angina

Arthritis

Asthma

Cataracts

Chronic lung disease

Diabetes

Hypertension

Stroke

Hypertension was by far the most common health condition for people ages 50 to 69 in all the countries, except in India where arthritis was most common.

For those who were 70 and older, hypertension was the leading chronic condition in China, South Africa, and Russia. In Russia, hypertension is particularly severe, with 65.2 percent those 70 and older diagnosed with the condition. Not surprisingly, the number two most common chronic condition in Russia is angina (47.8 percent).

Arthritis was overall the second most common chronic condition among those ages 50 to 69 and those 70 and older in the six countries, and was extremely common in Russia, South Africa, and China.

Among the six countries, India had the lowest average health score for both sexes combined and China had the highest.

China also had the lowest percentage of disabilities. In every country except China, more than three-quarters of the over-50 populations had at least one disability, the report authors wrote. India and Russia had the highest rates, with nine in 10 people over 50 in those countries suffering from a disability.

The report calculated the number of healthy years, free from disability, that a person in each of the countries could expect to live. Mexico leads the pack at 67 years, followed by China with 66, Russia with 60, India with 56, Ghana with 50, and South Africa with 48. When broken down by gender, women in all six countries are expected to have a longer healthy life expectancy based on 2007 data.

The study authors said the findings contribute to the body of data on how people in different parts of the world are aging. "Understanding differences in the health of older populations across and within countries is critical for planning healthcare services and social support systems, and for designing population health policies," the study authors wrote.